


The Writer

by Holyaqua



Category: Glee
Genre: F/F, Inspired by Call Me By Your Name
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2020-12-15
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:42:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27868586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Holyaqua/pseuds/Holyaqua
Summary: (Inspired by CMBYN)Rachel Berry is the daughter of two writers living in Italy whose life is changed when a young freelancer comes to stay at the family home for six weeks. Quinn Fabray is a sure-of-herself writer just trying to write the next great American novel. She's enamoured by the daughter of her employer. Secrecy and romance ensues
Relationships: Rachel Berry/Quinn Fabray
Comments: 6
Kudos: 33





	1. Ohio to Italy

WHEN Quinn came to Italy, it was a strange and upsetting time in Rachel’s life. She had not acted in months and the rural tones of the country were taking its effects on her life. At heart, she was a city girl and without her vice, she seemed to be crumbling. It was only a year, her father had protested on the move outward, but she was beginning to feel she was growing alongside the country. She had moved to Italy a young sixteen-year-old, and now was turning nineteen a different girl entirely. She was saddened deeply, and knew the lethargic European lifestyle was not for her. Her fathers seemed to enjoy themselves and were happy with leaving to do hours of writing in a small Italian office, but Rachel could not manifest those emotions within herself. She even was seeing someone, but even he seemed to bring no joy. She knew something was wrong that summer. 

Quinn arrived on a Friday morning to a bright and warm sky and the delicate smiles of two writers on the grass of a little town house somewhere in northern Italy. She was a writing student, fluent in English, Spanish, and Italian and with more brains than she knew what to do with. Rachel’s fathers had invited her to do some work in the country, as they had done every year they had been here, and she was to be staying in the small barn outside the house for the six weeks of pertinent summer that lay ahead. Usually, the student in the barn was a vaguely attractive American male who imagined they knew too much but knew far too little and like to overact. Quinn was different, they had never had a woman in the home before.  
She had greeted their family in the entryway of the home as Rachel and Dominic hung their heads out the window to watch her.  
“Lo scrittore” He was chuckling, but Rachel was taken aback.  
“A woman?”  
“You were expecting a man?”  
“The writer has never been a woman before.”  
Dominic leaned back into the window and lit a cigarette, smiling as he watched the girl linger outside the window frame and clamber to get a better view of the usurper. She was greeting her parents in Italian.  
“You feel threatened?” He asked her from the distance.  
“Be quiet.”  
Perhaps it happened then that Rachel fell in love, although it seemed unlikely to have happened in a small window frame three floors away from each other and without even knowing that the other fully existed and in what capacity. Quinn had not even seen her at the time, but the love may still have been present.  
“Rachel.” He spoke gently, approaching her with the cigarette in his jaw and his shirt hanging from his belt. He grappled her shoulders and began rubbing his thumbs into her back. “Don’t stress, my love.”  
She did not reply but brushed him off to run downstairs and greet the new arrival. All the way down the stairs she thought about the blonde hair tied up into a small ponytail, the sunglasses positioned perfectly on the bump of a thin nose, and a beautifully defined neck off of which the Italian summer lights had shone. Rachel caught view of her just ahead of the sun, looking like an angel.  
“Rachel.” Hiram smiled, placing a hand on the blonde’s shoulder. “This is Quinn Fabray. She’ll be staying in your room for the next six weeks.”  
“My room?” She gasped.  
“I’m sorry.” Quinn leaped forward with an outstretched hand. She smelt like sea salt and daisies. “Did you not know?”  
“I apologise, writers normally stay in the garage.” She spoke, looking over at the small green barn that attached to the home by a single set of outdoor stone stairs  
“When they’re men, I don’t think it’s appropriate for them to be around my daughter. I don’t see Quinn here as any impending threat to you.” Hiram laughed again. He did know Rachel was already falling in love as she stood.  
“Forgive me. I’ll stay in the barn.” Quinn spoke gently. The deep American twinge in her accent reminded Rachel of home and wanted nothing more than to have Quinn talk to her about anything and everything for as long as she could.  
“No, no, you shouldn’t.” The brunette smiled. “You’re a guest in my home. It wouldn’t be polite.”  
Quinn was taller than Rachel by a few centimetres and removed her sunglasses to meet the girl. Her eyes were hazel and sweet, just as she had imagined they would be.  
“Your American accent is amazing, you’d think you’d been speaking it all your life, huh?”  
“I have, we moved from America when I was sixteen.” The brunette spoke enthusiastically.  
“Ah, lucky for some.” Quinn chuckled.  
As she finished her sentence, Dominic clambered out the door in the midst of pulling his shirt back on his body and offering air kisses all the way to his bike. Rachel watched him disappear down the path that lead away from the home into the small city beyond, but Quinn remained fixated on her. The way she moved her hair from her eyes to see, and the way she anxiously bit her lip until the boy was disappeared completely, it enthralled her to see.  
“Idiota.” LeRoy scoffed, causing his husband to brush his arm gently out of what they both knew to be true. Dominic was an idiot, but he was the only boy for miles in the city who was no adamant about art and poetry, and who did not want to be a painter. A break from the arts was what Rachel so desperately needed.  
“Let me show you the study.” Hiram insisted, dropping Quinn’s bags at Rachel’s feet and wandering off to the other side of the estate, followed closely by his husband. It was so strange to see her walking about the grounds as if she had always been there and as if she knew it inside out as Rachel did. If she had lived in the city, Rachel’s life would not be so daringly boring. 

With the help of an Italian housemaid from the house next door, Quinn’s clothes lay spread on the floor of Rachel’s room in two suitcases, letting the scent of her perfume flood the cavities of her body and the holes in the walls so that she suspected she may never be rid of it again. It would stain her very soul. How was such affection to be developed within the hour, the girl pondered? It was almost impossible and yet there it was, bright and yellow like some headlights in which Rachel was but a helpless animal looking for shelter. All her clothes were canvas, buttoned or swimsuits and almost nothing had been packed for the possibility that it should soon turn very cold and winter might take the country by storm. It had never happened in her lifetime, and Italian summers tended to be hotter than even she could handle. The housemaid sighed at Rachel and spoke broken English, something about the look of love and what Quinn could possibly want with this estate and that she didn’t understand why anyone came from the city from here. Although Ohio wasn’t exactly the most urban place in the world, anything was better than here. The fields seemed to stretch for miles in green at lengths to kiss the sun, and Rachel only knew of several more people who existed in the same place as her. There was Dominic, his sister Maria, followed by a family of a mother and several young children. That was all. The group of people she associated herself with lived in the town just over, and even they were Dominic’s friends. They barely wanted anything to do with her at all and only tolerated her annoying American persona for their friend. Even so, all they seemed to do was drink and smoke and enjoy life, none of which Rachel could get a grasp on.  
“Rachel?”  
The girl was snapped out of her thoughts by a body stood in the doorway, leaning one arm high above her head and the other holding a pair of expensive sunglasses in its hand.  
“How do you know my name?”  
“How do I know your name?” Quinn laughed, walking towards the small brunette and letting her body linger over her. “Your father introduced us before.”  
“Oh, I’m sorry.”  
“I like your room.”  
“Your room.”  
Quinn smiled, watching the eyes of the young brunette twinkle under the false light of the room. It was her room, but Quinn could feel the discomfort welling. It had become their room as quickly as it belonged to either one of the girls.  
“Only for a couple of weeks then you can have it back, you’ll like that, won’t you?” She offered, sitting down on the bed between the cases.  
“You’ve travelled from Ohio today?”  
“Yes.” Quinn spoke politely.  
“You must be exhausted.” Rachel was getting nervous and sweaty in ways she had only read about in books and seen in movies. Her hands were clammy and her throat dry. She wanted to ground to swallow her up where she stood.  
“Oh, no more than anyone else around here.” Quinn laughed, but Rachel wouldn’t see the humour. Her cheeks were flushing, and she was embarrassed even to be alive.  
There was silence between them, one of very many that would come that summer. Rachel couldn’t bare it, Quinn found it quite peaceful. The brunette knelt to the floor and pulled two draws from opposite sides of Quinn’s feet. She was suddenly enthralled to be below the women. Rachel knew Quinn was older. She had a job, a freelance writer somewhere, and probably even had a fiancée back home who she couldn’t wait to see again. There was something in her that enjoyed not being part of the blonde’s plan. She wanted to disrupt.  
“You can keep your clothes in here.” She gulped.  
“Thank you.” Quinn leaned forward and whispered. “I think I’m going to take a quick nap right now if that’s okay with you.”  
“You…you don’t have to ask.”  
“I know.” Quinn rose and gently touched Rachel’s face in a friendly sort of way that boys often did when saying something true. She was laughing and her sugary breath sent Rachel into a whirlwind of despair and arousal. “It’s a joke. Don’t be so European about things, jeez.”  
The girl only blushed and helped her counterpart moved the suitcases from the bed onto the floor ready to be unpacked.  
“We usually have dinner about eight.” She followed. “A couple of the village boys will be coming around, they usually do. I hope that’s alright.”  
“Is your boyfriend coming?”  
“My who?”  
“Your…..how do you say it? Your fidanzato? Is that right?” Quinn pondered, pulling back the covers to realise Rachel had slept there that night. In that bed. Her body has been all over it.  
“Oh.” She replied. “He’s not my…well…. It’s very complicated. I don’t know if he’s going to. Sometimes he does, sometimes he eats at home.”  
“Either way, please tell your father I’ve decided to sleep through dinner.” She smiled. Rachel was leaving before it got any worse and she would not be able to help but ripping her clothes off in that instant. “I’ll have an early lunch with him tomorrow. Cool?”  
“Cool.”  
“Okay, cool. See you tomorrow.”  
Rachel took from the room without a second thought, leaning up against the closed door as she left. There was no pinpointing where it began but it had already started by then. She was in love. The kind that happened almost too quick and no one had any time to catch it before it was wreaking havoc. The very notion of love was melting inside her as she stood there. Quinn. How lovely she was. How American also. Had Rachel really said ‘cool’? Her fathers would have killed her if they knew. Quinn lay in bed, not knowing Rachel stood less than a doors width away and smelt the sheets. She was thinking of Rachel’s body and the sun in Italy. How funny she would find them both paired together. It would be her demise, but she drifted off to sleep, there was nothing to think about but gentle coffee skin and big hazel eyes. Rachel Berry. la ragazza più bella del mondo.


	2. Playing Football and learning to drink

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Apologies! I only speak very broken Italian, hope I got everything right! I hope you all enjoy

Rachel and her fathers had been in Italy for three years and all spoke broken Italian apart from Leroy who insisted on speaking nothing but that. Something about living in Italy, on Italian land and not speaking the language. Dominic insisted Rachel should try and speak Italian as much as she was able, but she just couldn’t. Something about it felt wrong and it was an acceptance of the fact she would never be going back to America. Between this and feeling isolated because she couldn’t understand her friends, Rachel existed in an eternal state of conflict. That evening at dinner, she stared her fathers in the face and spoke with her chest outwards, almost crying with the loss. 

“Quinn isn’t coming to dinner.” 

“No?” Hiram asked, plating himself some of the salad prepared by him by their housemaids. 

“No, I’m sorry.”

“What did you say to her?” 

“I said we were having dinner at eight, which we are.” She fumbled her words as if they were vomit. “And I said that some boys might be here, which they aren’t. She said she was going to sleep through, and then said ‘cool’.”

Hiram stared at her with an eyebrow raised. She wondered if he knew her secret. Would she have to take this to the grave? 

“Very American.” He said finally. 

He was right. 

“I think that’s how she might leave us when all of this is over.” Rachel began working her way into a dislike for Quinn, attempting to throw everyone off the scent. She wondered if she could go that for herself also. “With a sweet American cool.”

“She isn’t quite as acclimatised as yourself.” Hiram began. 

“Gli americani sono ignoranti, Rachel” Leroy chuckled. “ignorante e molto scortese”

“We were American once.” Rachel scorned him.

“And, thank god we aren’t anymore.” Her father laughed, opening up a book on the table and scanning the words with his pointer finger and holding his fork in the opposite hand. “I don’t think I could stand another day there.” 

“I could.” Rachel sighed. 

There was silence at the table as Rachel eyed up all the food on the white cloth. A fish on a platter, some sort of cold rice dish, and a bowl of cut peaches all surrounded by small salad dishes and little bowls of lemon water. All she could think about was Quinn and how she didn’t feel this way the night she met Dominic. 

“I heard she’s going to go into town tomorrow to open a bank account. You should offer to show her around, I’m sure she’d appreciate that.”

“No.” Rachel sighed. “I don’t imagine she would.”

“You’re always so pessimistic, Rachel.” Hiram slammed his book shut. “You want to start making friends.”

She said nothing for the rest of dinner except a small offering of gratitude to the maids when she was finished and wanted to be excused. It had gone dark outside and sadness threatened to well her chest and cause her to burst. Her fathers seemed to ignore her at night, so she had little trouble deciding she had enough of conversation and wished to be alone. Alone. Where Rachel was most of the time. It was astonishing how often she felt alone despite all the people around her. Despite all the books she had to read, and all the songs she had to sing she was desperately lonely. That night, she climbed the stairs walked into her room to sit on the edge of the bed as she did each night, only this time, a beautiful blonde woman was laying in the blue sheets, filled with the moonlight and taken in beauty. She was barely breathing and only her face and arm could be seen atop the bed. Her skin almost seemed like porcelain. Rachel could barely take her eyes from the girl. 

“I’m sorry.” She whispered, thinking she was asleep and could achieve no more than a feigned conversation she would never build the courage to have. “I forgot I don’t get to sleep here anymore.”

“That’s okay.” Quinn sleepily returned to her surprise, not opening her eyes. “Just please don’t watch me sleep next time.” 

“I’m so sorry.” She managed to muster a small laugh despite her overwhelming feelings of mortification.

“Stay if you like.” Quinn invited. 

“No, I don’t think I can. I’m supposed to take you to town in the morning to the bank.”  
“Okay.” The blonde rolled over in bed. “See you tomorrow.” 

When she had said tomorrow, Rachel had no idea Quinn would appear at lunch in the same shirt she went to sleep in. The family had been say outside eating raspberries on the grass when the young girl came down in her little green shirt and denim shorts.

“Buongiorno. Buongiorno” She spoke, exiting the side of the home onto the outdoor stone. 

“It’s 12pm.” Hiram laughed. “I take it you slept well?”

“Yes, yes. I can’t remember the last time I slept somewhere warm.” Quinn chuckled. “I hope you don’t mind if I skip through lunch to head to town? I’ll catch up on my pages tonight.”

“Partire!” Leroy smiled, reaching for the girl’s hand. “divertiti. hai tempo.”  
“Grazie.” Quinn clasped both of his hands in her own before she looked over the girl who lay on the grass, raspberry juice leaking from her lips. 

“You’re heading into town?”

“Yes.” Quinn replied, reaching the girl’s body. “Are you still coming?”

“I thought you’d forgotten.” 

“Are you mad?”

“No. voglio essere intorno a te.” Rachel whispered to herself, raising to her feet and standing with Quinn in the sun. Her perfume was just as strong as it had been last night but contained the scent of life and the wonder of goodness about it. Rachel wanted to drown in it. 

“You can take my dad’s bike, and I’ll take mine.”

Quinn’s favourite thing to do that summer was to watch Rachel ride her bike. She could do nothing but peddle behind, sometimes with a cigarette, sometimes not and watch her creamy thighs fall either side of the blue bar and push herself on. Her hair blew in the summer wind and her shoulders, often exposed, seemed to grow more freckled by the very day. It was enthralling just to be near her and painful to not be able to reveal her feelings. They rode to town that day and stopped off at a store for Quinn to buy cigarettes, and Rachel pondered around a bookstore whilst her counterpart visited the bank. They had gone to lunch afterwards where Quinn had a coffee and another cigarette and Rachel had some sort of sandwich or other. Most of their trip was silent until Quinn vegan to miss the voice that had rang all night in her ears.

“What do you do here all summer? Are you not bored?”

“I read all day and drink at night, just like everyone else.” Rachel replied, head in her book.

“What are you reading?”

“Ted Berrigan.”

“You like his poetry?”

“I like this one.” She lay the book on the table. 

“Words for Love.” Quinn smiled over her cigarette. “He was wonderful, wasn’t he? I’ve always taken a liking to poems.”

“I like some.” Rachel placed the book in her bag. “I think it’s the one thing I prefer in Italy than I do in America.”

They began their terms of silence again. Without the book, Rachel could only pine and look at Quinn with a shot of desperation that seemed to say, ‘It’s killing me that we’re not talking.’ “I’m going to go home; I think your father might kill me if I don’t start writing.” The blonde spoke eventually, getting to her feet. “Do you want a cigarette before I go?”

“I haven’t smoked before.”

“Here you go.” The blonde leant into the girl and put a cigarette between her lips, lighting it and taking the first drag herself. Rachel could only sit and be victim as Quinn lifted the thing into her mouth and touched her along the jaw. 

“Be careful, now. It’s a slippery slope.”

She almost let her escape, standing to her feet just as the blonde mounted her bike.  
“I’m going to a little party tonight. Would you like to come?”

“See you at home, Rachel.” She sighed. 

“Okay. See you tonight.”

“Cool. See you then."

Rachel thought herself stupid all day and then the evening, surrounded by boys playing football and learning how to drink alcohol in her deepest time of need. It was desperately awful and she was looking to escape anyway she knew how. Quinn attended that night, not greeting Rachel and immediately being swept away by some boy a year younger than she was who Dominic knew but could not be seen with often. It was a perfect night. The gathering confined itself to just a square in the middle of nowhere, bathed in pink and green lights and gathered with teenagers drinking and smoking, falling in love without knowing how. It was dark and every breath grew colder and shorter and the night approached its ends and Quinn remained dancing with her boy. Rachel sat at the back of the square surrounded by girls who clouded themselves in smoke and only attended out of boredom. The only thing Rachel had in common with this ladies is that none of them could take their eyes of Quinn as she danced.

“Io voglio essere lei” One spoke quietly.

“Lei è Bellissima”Another one replied.

Dominic watched intently, knowing Rachel could see him.

“cosa ne pensi, Rachel?” He leaned towards her, stinking of cheap cologne and smoke. “È la ragazza più bella che tu abbia mai visto?”

“lei è fastidiosa” Rachel replied with intent, guzzling down her drink. She was watching the blonde as she leaned over the man’s shoulder and they caught sight of each other from just across the way. Her eyes were full of eroticism and lust and Rachel could not bear to be there any longer.

“La voglio molto male”

She wanted her then and went to bed and wanted her there just the same. How horrible it was to be in love, but how deeply intensified this way by feeling that Quinn hated her and would not, even with six weeks at hand, feel the same. She went to sleep, and in her dreams, wanted Quinn all the same.


	3. Into the clearing through the trees

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for all the feedback on this work! I'm enjoying writing it so much!

Rachel spent the next morning watching Quinn play volleyball with a small group of girls from the city. She sat alone with Dominic with her back pressed against the cool grass of the morning, closing her eyes and listening to the grunting of the game in the background. She could tell Quinn’s voice from the others even from far away and in another boy’s lap. 

“You look as if you’re about to fall asleep.” He chuckled at her, holding out his hand to play with her hair. Part of her imagined it was Quinn even then, and that her gentle fingers ran through her locks and grazed her scalp. 

“I’m fine.” She sighed. 

“Would you be fine if I went to play?”

The girl sat up and pushed her sunglasses onto her head. Dominic sat there in the sun, shirtless, and with hair flopped about his face. He looked attractive then and Rachel began to feel strange for having thoughts about Quinn.

“I think I’ll be okay.” 

The brunette reached for a bottle of water, only to have it ripped from her hands by a tall blonde who breathed heavily over the couple.

“Sorry, Rach.” She breathed, guzzling down the water and chucking the bottle back at the ground. “Hope that’s cool. You’re not coming to play?’

“No, thank you.” She uttered. “I don’t play.”

“No? Why not?”

“I just don’t.”

“Come here.” Quinn leant down and pressed both hands into the girls back, massaging her shoulders in gentle circular motions. Rachel could have died on the spot. Her whole body felt like it was ablaze right there in the summer sun. She felt like she was the only person in the world, and the only girl who Quinn’s hands had ever touched. 

“No wonder you’re not playing, you’re so tense.” She spoke. “You need to relax, Rach. Dominic, come here.”

The boy’s clumsy hands were guided onto his girlfriend’s shoulders, prodding at the tender spots with the carelessness of a child. 

“Feel how tense that is?”

The boy nodded and carried on as the blonde leapt back off into the distance. What started as a beautiful affair of the skin was making Rachel sicker by the second, and she could only endure a minute of the thing before standing up to leave. 

“I’m going to take a nap.” She lied and left to her room to sulk over how lovesick she had become.

That was the last day she heard of Quinn for a week. There existed some sort of unspoken disparity between them. She would disappear for days at a time and return smelling of ugly cologne. Rachel suspected she had been spending all her time at the Leonardo’s apartment in the very centre of the city. He was a football player and was on track to leave the country within the next two years to earn millions. Rachel had never disliked him before, but now the thought of him made her want to die. If she was there, they would have already fallen into some sort arrangement that was more romantic than her current affair with Rachel. It made her ill. For nights on end, she sat on the grass at the corner of her estate and waited for Quinn to ride around the corner. It never came. She would head to bed and wake the next morning to the distant image of her cycling out of the gates and down the road to the city where they had been to the bank. Rachel treasured that interaction now, even though it was small and didn’t mean anything other than a mutual love of deep American poetry. Each night, Quinn was in her dreams. She could not shake her. When she became visible again, and stayed for dinner every other night, they didn’t speak. They existed in parallel to each other, always coming close but never really crossing the threshold. It was torture to Rachel. There were moments of conversation, but always with another party after which silence renewed. There was crying each night and scribbling of horrible Italian poems, but no relief from the irony that was her life. Quinn hates her, and there was nothing she could do to embellish that.

When Quinn came to talking again, Rachel was elated. It was the morning of the second Friday the blonde was in town and she greeted the girl for breakfast.

“Are you done reading your book?”  
“What book?” 

“The poetry. Remember?”

“Oh.” Rachel lifted her sunglasses to see the girl. “No, I’m translating it into Italian. I enjoy it more that way.”

“That’s a good way of getting to grips with things, I suppose.”

‘Where have you been?’ Rachel thought. 

“How’s your novel coming along?”

Quinn sighed, pouring herself a glass of juice. “Terrible.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. My fathers aren’t helping?”

“They can’t help me.” She spoke. “I think I’m in love.” 

“That’s unfortunate.” The brunette stood from her seat, letting the very book Quinn quizzed her about fall from her pocket into the grass. She stared at the   
bearded man on the cover, he looked ever so slightly like Dominic and kindhearted. 

“Are you busy today?”

“No.” Rachel spoke. “I’m going to be lazy like every other day.”

“Come into town with me. Just the two of us. I need cigarettes.”

“Can’t one of your friends take you?”

“You don’t think we’re friends?” Quinn chuckled, wiping juice from her lip. The girl in front of wandered mercilessly about the garden, looking for any way to escape the awkwardness between herself and the blonde. 

“I didn’t…..I mean….” She sighed. “I’ll go to town with you. Let me get my things.” 

Quinn waited in the garden and watched through the open windows as Rachel packed a backpack. She was bringing a pen, her books, some papers and a small bottle of perfume that had been left on a high shelf in her room and that Quinn had often stared at in the night. It was written in Italian but had never been translated and when Rachel came down, she smelt of roses and all things good. Knowing the girl was a high that never seemed to dwindle. They cycled down to the very same table they had sat on the other day and reflected on a time they knew each other better and weren’t separated by the strange and upsetting ideal of only having been worlds apart. Quinn fit perfectly into Italy. She looked like she owned the country, sat there smoking just ahead of the town’s fountain. She looked so picturesque it was hard to believe she existed just in front of Rachel.

“So, what’s your book about anyway?” 

“The one I’m writing or the one I’m reading?”

“The one you’re writing.” She smiled. “I don’t have much care for what book you happen to be reading.” 

“You’re very funny.” Quinn entertained the girl. “It’s about a handsome American prince who wants to marry a poor girl. Only she’s in love with the local inventor and he’s in love with his assistant.”

“That’s all?”

“What do you mean ‘that’s all’, Rach?” The blonde leaned forward, blowing cigarette smoke in the younger girl’s face. “It’s about unrequited love; the most painful feeling in the world. I mean, have you ever loved someone who just didn’t love you back?”

Rachel went silent and stared across the table at Quinn who looked equally as dumbfounded as she looked serious. She waited for a real answer from the brunette.   
“I think you know the answer to that.” She came, meekly. 

Quinn sat back and looked onwards, sighing in what she likely already knew to be true. She did know, just as she had always known, and how she would know even when she left to return to America. She stood, walking to the fountain to be anywhere but there.

“It can make you sick, loving someone who doesn’t love you, you know?”

“You think I’m sick?” Rachel leapt to follow her with urgency. 

“I suppose I do, but I think I’d prefer it if everyone was as sick as you are.”

They stood in silence as Quinn finished the very last drag of her cigarette and shoved the remaining packet in her pocket for later, tossing the butt into the fountain and watching the end sizzle in the heat of day. 

“Did you tell me what I think you were telling me, Rach?” She did not look down at the girl.

“I think so.”

“Why did you tell me?”

Rachel’s heart was thumping in her chest. It was surprising the whole town did not think some colossal natural disaster was afoot.   
“I told you because I wanted you to know.”

Quinn met Rachel’s gaze. 

“Because you wanted me to know?”

“There isn’t anyone I could have said it to but you.”

Quinn sighed in what appeared to be feigned disappointment, rearing her head to the small streets of Italy and ignoring the passion that burned within her for the girl who had just confessed her love outside a convenience store. 

“Come on.” She ushered. “Show me some of your country. I have time to waste.” 

After her confession, Rachel felt both relieved of sin and renewed in a new kind of treason that was equally as everlasting as the last. She was biking behind Quinn wanting to cry and knowing there was nothing she could do to take those words back. The girls cycled to a small clearing just beyond the very outskirts of town where there were no homes, and the only discernible feature was a small lake that stretched no further than four tress beyond the beaten path. They stopped at the edge and dropped their bikes.  
“This is my spot. I come here to read.”

“It’s pretty. You fancy a swim?” Quinn removed her shirt and stood in only her shorts and tank. 

Quinn stayed in the water as Rachel stepped around to sit on the sunny grass and annotate the book she’d been working against, dying of guilt. 

“I wish I hadn’t spoken.” She said.

“I’m pretending you didn’t.” Quinn scaped the waters and came and sat by her counterpart on the grass. 

“You’re not going to start avoiding me again, are you?”

Quinn stared at the vulnerable girls and thought of all the ways she could say yes without breaking her heart. 

“Well.” She spoke. “I don’t think we should talk about our…well….situation. We can’t, really.”

Silence again. Horrible and ugly silence where both girls had so much to say it was unreal to begin to process it over the spoken word. 

“I think it’s better than nothing.” Quinn spoke eventually. “I mean, I didn’t even think you liked me a couple of days ago.”

“Like you?” The brunette scoffed. “Quinn, I worship you.” 

She leaned over to Rachel and looked her in the eyes, realising then how beautiful she was and how everlasting it was. She was beyond pretty, it seemed to be ethereal and Quinn pondered how she could even be of this earth. 

“I like you too.” 

With a moment of impulse, she reached over and kissed the girl, pressing their lips to together in a last desperate attempt at some kind of peace between them. The world around them seemed to melt into a pool of nothingness as they grappled at each other for and fondled as though they had never experienced the touch of another. For Rachel, this was true and for Quinn, she had never touched a woman she had been so infatuated with. It was both tender and scary, and Rachel knew she would never recover from this moment for as long as she should live. 

“Do you feel better now?” Quinn asked as they separated. She ran her finger over Rachel’s wet lips, feeling how plump and swollen they had become and smiling in pride. 

“Worse.”

“I think we should go.” 

“No.” Rachel leapt up in a final moments kiss. “Please stay.”

Quinn stood up and walked across the grass back to where the lake was. Her body had dried quickly and she was looking at Rachel, on her back, legs spread and dress letting the top of her thighs peak up. The brunette brought herself up on her arms and let a strand of hair fall absently in her face. She looked exhausted from all the pining.   
“I can’t. I don’t want you to do this with you, I mean, I can’t do this with you. We’ve been good so far and I think we should let it stay that way.”

“Did I hurt you?” Rachel asked. “I know that knowing someone wants you and there is nothing you can do for them is the most hopeless of all emotions.”

“Is there anything you don’t know? The blonde chuckled.

“if only you knew how little I know about things that matter.” 

Quinn smiled and took her time walking around the water to where the bikes lay flat and hot in the sun. Rachel could only watch. She wasn’t ready to leave and leave the spot where she has first kissed the only person she would think about every time she had sex for the rest of her life. Her indentation was still in the grass beside her. 

“I don’t know the way home. Are you coming?” 

Rachel said nothing and lay in looking up at the sun through the trees and wanting nothing more than to die so that her body would decompose into the ground and she may never have to leave. Before she knew it, Quinn was gone and she was alone, nothing but the thoughts of the girl stirring around in her mind until she was asleep and lulling away her day, like some kind of summer dream. It would be so sad so soon, but for now, it was summer, she was in love, and there was nothing better in the world.


	4. Grow up, Meet me at midnight

For the first time in three days, Quinn came to dinner at the Berry household. Dominic and Leonrdo joined them, Leroy retiring early to his study in the aid of finishing whatever work he had for the day that had not been completed. They sat on the tile of the garden at a table where only cold dishes could be served with the heat of the evening, and Rachel was suffocating in love. She was watching the blonde sip wine and laugh at the jokes the boys had made with each other. 

“How is your novel coming along, Quinn?” Leonardo laughed over his drink. “Are you the next best American writer?”

“The very next best, but not quite yet.” Quinn chuckled back. 

“No one has seen this much-anticipated novella in around a week. I wonder if it still exists or if you have just decided it was perfect on your own.” Hiram smiled. He had a way of teasing all the writers who stayed in his house that weeded out the weak easily. It was a great test to who he’d befriend in the near future and who he would invite back for another term. 

“You’ll have to forgive me, your rebel of a daughter had shown me the ins and outs of your country and I dread to think I should spend any time not lounging in the sun.”

“You like each other, don’t you?” He replied, leaning across the table towards the girls who were next to each other, only inches apart.

“I feel I’ve taken Rachel under my wing. She wants to be a writer, did you know that?”

“Is this true?”

“No.” Rachel scolded. “I’m translating poetry into Italian. I hardly call that writing.”

“Making things understandable is the first step, my love.” Hiram continued. “Once you understand, words flow out of you. That’s the beauty of writing. Your father will be so proud of you.”

She said nothing in return and listened as the boys and Quinn spoke loudly in Italian about their favourite books and how they had read them what felt like a million times over. It happened then. Quinn’s hand placed itself atop Rachels exposed thigh and squeezed. It made her yelp in her seat. She was teasing her, not realising the brunette sat there seconds away from death and wanting nothing more than to be touching Quinn. To be holding her. Just to be pressed against her skin would have been enough for her. 

“Rachel…” Dominic came. “Il tuo naso sanguine.”

Everyone turned to face her and watched as she put her fingers up to her nose and saw it was true, blood was pouring down her face. 

“Perdonami, perdomani.” She ushered, getting to her feet and hurrying back off into the house with the blood pooling from her nose and into her hands, collecting there in a puddle. For as long as she could, she sat against the fridge with ice in her hands, holding the blood off until the maid would eventually come with towels and wrap her up rag towels from the cupboard downstairs. 

Quinn came first, smiling from the wine she had been drinking and laughing at the young girl in her sorry state.

“Found you.” She smiled, sitting beside her on the floor. “Did I do that to you?”

“I’m a wreck.”

“I know. It’s good to bleed, though. You’ll be okay.”

Quinn reached over and kissed the dried blood on the brunette’s neck until it was wet again and dripped mercifully into her collarbones. 

“You’re going to kill me.” Rachel giggled. 

“I hope not.”

“You are. I think I’ve died for you every single day since you got here.” 

Quinn chuckled, letting her lips peck the tangent on Rachel’s jaw and neck one last time.

“Are you going to be okay?”

“I’ll get over it.” Rachel chuckled. Quinn was gone all too soon and by the time Rachel left to meet the table again, no one was there but Dominic, tapping a breadstick against the table cloth. 

“Where is everyone?” 

“Asleep, Rachel. Do you know the time?”

“No.”

“Two in the morning.” 

“Really?” She questioned, checking her own watch. It was true, just past the hour even. “I must have fallen asleep or something. You shouldn’t have waited, I am okay.”

“I had to see if you were okay, but I didn’t want to interrupt you. Is that okay?”

In the desperate attempt to remove Quinn from her head, Rachel leant over and wrapped her arms around the boys neck, kissing at his face gently. He held her roughly, as if she was some doll he could purchase a new one of when this one broke. 

“I am enchanted by you, all the time.” He breathed. She almost believed him, and may have even fallen for the trap if she was not already attempting to lay her down on the grass and pulling her shorts around her ankles. 

“You like Quinn, don’t you?” He grunted into her neck.

“Yes."

“Like you like me?”

“No. Don’t be strange.”

He pushed forward in his plan of domination, removing her clothes there on her parents property. She did not object, she simply lay and imagined Quinn could see from her bedroom window. What would she be thinking right now? Would she even care to watch? Would she feel so sick it drove her away or would she still sleep soundly in the knowledge the great love of her life was being defiled just a stone’s throw away. The love of her life, Rachel laughed in her head, she could never be so close.

“Ti amo.” He moaned.

If only she could have gotten a nosebleed later in the day. 

“Do you hide from me, Rachel?” He kissed her. 

“What do you mean?” She asked.

“I mean, do you hide parts of yourself away from me?” 

“No, well, I mean, yes, but doesn’t everyone? Do you hide from me? Any of it?”

“Almost all.” He stuttered, just before ejaculating over her naked body and leaving her feeling as horrible as she had ever felt, lying in the sticky hot grass of Italy and wanting to cry. 

“Mi dispiace!” He yelped, pulling back onto his knees. “Sono così dispiaciuto! Era così bello.”

“Don’t apologise.” She sat up, using the end of his shirt to clean up what he had done. “Do not panic yourself. I’ve heard its very common.” 

“You won’t ignore me now, will you, Rachel?” Dominic remained naked and oh his knees as the girl stood and fastened herself. She liked to think that in the summer they were together, Dominic became to her what she was to Quinn; A hopeless little thing wanting love and doing nothing but pining their life away. Leaving him that night, she was crying all the way to her room and lay there, in the dark, knowing Quinn was only a bathroom away. In hindsight, she should have gone up. She would have if she knew that the next succession of days she would be ignored entirely and made to feel as if she barely existed in Quinn’s life. She should have gone up there and offered to sleep on the floor. She needed it. 

When Quinn was ignoring her, days felt like months. She barely slept. All she wanted to do was pretend neither she nor the blonde existed in the capacity which they did. She wished they were both something of another world so that they may not carry the burden of emotion or courtesy. Quinn spent her day eating dinner, writing her novel, then lounging in the sun until it was time to begin again. Rachel almost wanted to die. She spent every day writing letters that would never be read and that would never be seen again by anyone but herself. 

‘I worship you so much. Please don’t ignore me.’ One said. ‘I want to be with you. Please talk to me.’

Too cheesy, Rachel sighed. She thought something more direct might do it. 

‘Please fuck me. I think I’m dying to have you inside me.’ She wrote.

That wasn’t it either. She couldn’t stand to think of Quinn reading brash words and thinking horrible things about her.   
‘I can’t stand the silence anymore. I want to talk to you. I don’t like thinking you hate me’.   
Despite an adequate flair for drama, Rachel thought it would do. She left in the night to place it on the sink of the bathroom they shared in good hopes it would meet the right audience. It was morning before she got a reply and even then, it abruptly read: ‘You need to grow up. Meet me at midnight’.


End file.
